Too Many Gifts

I was recently meeting with three couples from a very wealthy family. Each of these couples was concerned about the amount of gifts their children received from the grandparents. It wasn’t just slightly overboard … those kids received hundreds of presents. They even had trouble staying focused on opening that many presents.

The parents were overwhelmed with the amount of stuff their children received. They needed to cart it all back home plus find a place for everything. Yikes!

What could these parents do to improve the situation? One option would be to sit down with the grandparents ahead of time and discuss their concerns. However, the couples felt they really couldn’t talk to the grandparents about reducing the amount of presents without causing a major family rift. The grandparents wanted to express their love with all these gifts.

Another option would be for the parents to allow the children to keep a certain number of presents and donate the rest. Or the children and parents could go through the previous years’ gifts in November and donate a majority of those presents.

Have you dealt with a similar situation? Please leave a comment about how you handled it.